CHAPTER I. LITTLE VIOLET.

Every one knew little Violet. She sat always in a small window which projected out over the street, and her purple frock and pale face were looked for and recognized by almost every passer-by.

She had sat in that curious turret-shaped window for four years—in winter, in spring, in summer, in autumn. Other children made snow men and pelted snowballs in the street beneath, while she looked on from above and laughed and clapped her hands. In the spring the little ones went off by the score and gathered yellow and purple crocuses, of which not a few found their way into Violet's lap, or bloomed again in the vases which stood on the sills of the old-fashioned eight-sided window. She loved to have those flowers[Pg 10], and took them from the children's hands with her brightest and most grateful smile. Later on they brought her violets, sweet wood-violets, and trailing ground-ivy; but for these flowers she now had no smile, only tears, which gathered and multiplied, and which would, despite all her efforts, run down her purple dress in large, bright drops. For was not she herself called Violet? and had not some one, not so long ago, often whispered this word to her in a voice which seemed for ever in her ears?—

"My own sweet Violet, lay thy head on mother's breast and rest thee a while. My little Violet is sweeter to me than all the flowers in the town."

And now that Violet had no mother, she could scarcely bear to look at the purple blossoms which they brought to her in bunches; and yet she put them aside, and, when they were withered, treasured them all in "mother's Bible," which lay always on a little table beside her.

In summer, in the gap at the far end of the street, between the church and the fountain, she could always catch a glimpse of the hills—the beautiful green hills, covered with trees to the very top, and from whence, in the autumn, the children returned laden with nuts, baskets and satchels and boxes full; and though Violet did not eat nuts, they made tea-things out of[Pg 11] the shells, and had doll tea-parties in the old turret-window.

A year ago she had been a very happy little girl; and although even then she could not walk, nor run, nor jump about like other children, still she never fretted about it. She had some one always with her who made the long days pass so happily, that she never stopped to ask herself why she was unlike the others, or why all the neighbours as they went by looked up at her with such pity in their eyes.

Only once for a few moments she had seemed to understand something about it, when little Fritz Adler, her great friend, going by riding on a stick with a horse's head attached to it, shrieked up to her from the street beneath in great pride,—

"Ha, ha, Violet! look at me how I can prance; thou couldst not do so if thou triedst."

"I could," she shouted. "By-and-by, when I can run like thee, I will ride too."

"No, no, thou never wilt," screamed Fritz, giving his wooden horse a lash with his leather whip. "I wanted to give thee this horse, this very one; Ella had bought thee this very whip; but mother said 'No,' it would be folly to give thee such a present."

"Why?" asked Violet. "Why, Fritz, did she say that?"

[Pg 12]

"Ah! thou knowest thou art not like other children."

"Why am not I like other children?"

"Because thou canst not run or even walk about like me and Ella. Mother says thou art a little hunchback, and it would hurt thy poor back to ride and prance like this;" and Fritz, again lashing his horse, began to plunge violently up and down on the pavement opposite.

"Fritz, what didst thou say? I am what?" but he could give no answer, for his mother, who lived in the little baker's shop across the road, rushing out, promptly secured the offender, and having given him a smart slap across the face, dragged him back into the house.

"Mother, what did he say I was? and why did his mother slap him? He called me a little hunchback. What does that mean, mother?"

Violet's mother had not been attending to the conversation. She had been working at a little white frilled pinafore for her daughter at a table near the stove, and she had just taken the crimping irons from the heart of the fire, red-hot and smoking; but when she heard these words she dropped them suddenly on the floor, and in a moment she was on her knees in front of little Violet's chair,[Pg 13] and covering the child's thin white hands with kisses.

"What does it signify what it means; he is a cruel boy to call thee such a name. Thou art my darling, my treasure, my sweetest Violet. Thou art the most precious little girl in all the town."

Somewhat amazed at her mother's sudden anguish of mind, and at the passionate way she kissed her cheeks and stroked her hair, Violet gazed at her with eyes which widened and dilated, and then she seemed for a few moments lost in thought; after which she said, in her usual quiet voice, with only the faintest tinge of trouble in it,—

"Mother, dear, is this a hump I have on my back? and is that the reason why I sit in this chair and cannot walk?"

"Dearest," replied her mother almost in a whisper, "my heart's love, do not fret or think any more about what Fritz said. Thou art one of God's own little children, and is not that the best thing of all?"

Violet nodded her head—it was a way she had of agreeing to things said to her; but still she was not quite satisfied, for after a pause she said anxiously,—

"But did God give me this hump, mother? and what is in it that it pains me so?"

As she asked this question, she gave a sudden sob,[Pg 14] and some tears fell on the front of her pretty purple dress.

"Do not cry, my sweetest treasure," cried the mother, drawing the child's head down on her shoulder, and once more covering it with kisses. "What does it matter what we are like here? If thou canst not walk nor run here, by-and-by Christ will carry my little lamb in his bosom; and if thou hast a hump on thy back now, what does it matter? Some day the good Lord Jesus will call my little one to himself, and then all the pain will be gone; and where the poor shoulders ache so much now, thou wilt have wings, shining wings, and thou wilt never cry there any more, but always be quite happy."

"And Violet will have wings!—thou knowest that?" said the little girl, lifting her head suddenly from her mother's shoulder and looking earnestly into her face.

"Yes, darling."

"Beautiful, shining, silver wings; and no more hump and no more pain?"

"No more hump and no more pain," replied her mother softly.

"And thou wilt be there, dearest mother?"

"Yes, sweetest treasure, I trust I shall be there."

"And father?"

[Pg 15]

"And father also."

"And Fritz; will he be there? Will he not, mother?"

"I hope so. Yes; but it was not kind of him to speak roughly to my little one."

"His mother slapped him," said Violet sorrowfully.

"He deserved it," replied her mother somewhat sharply.

The little girl gave a long sigh; and pressing one of the tears which still stood in a bright drop on the front of her dress with the tip of her finger until it disappeared in the purple cashmere folds, she said softly,—

"I love Fritz. I must tell him what thou hast just told me, that though I cannot run or jump like him or Ella, some day, not very far away, when the Lord Jesus calls me, I shall have wings. Is it not true, mother?"

"Quite true," she answered with an effort, then turned quickly away towards the stove and resumed her ironing.

[Pg 16]

CHAPTER II. MOTHER'S FAREWELL.

A year had flown away since that eventful day when Fritz had somewhat roughly awakened Violet to the fact that she was a little hunchback, and that she was never to run or walk like him or Ella; and now everything connected with this little life of hers was changed. The young mother with the fair hair and the blue eyes and the warm, loving heart, had flown away before her little girl. The good Lord Jesus had called her first, and she was asleep now in the little churchyard beside the church which stood at the end of the street.

She could not shelter nor protect her little girl any more from hurtful words, nor press her to her heart to soothe the pain which they had caused her. She could not sit beside her in the window and read and talk to her till the hours flew by almost unnoticed, so that Violet often forgot that her back ached and that her legs were weary.

[Pg 17]

It had come so suddenly too—at least to Violet it was sudden. She had not noticed the short coughs, or the quick breathing, or the flushed cheeks; only to her eyes her little mother, as she always called her, grew more lovely every day. But one night when she was asleep, and dreaming of a wooden go-cart which Fritz had promised to make for her the next day, her father came to her bedside and called to her to awake.

"Violet, my darling, thou must awake. Come with me to thy mother; she is calling for thee."

"For me," she said, rising up with sleepy eyes and tossed hair. "Where is dear mother, and why does she want me in the night?"

Her father stooped down over the bed and lifted her up in his arms very gently, for it hurt her to lift her up quickly or roughly; and without answering her he carried her through the doorway into the inner room.

"Mother, dear, why dost thou want me in the night?" asked Violet, sleepily stretching out her arms towards the bed in which her mother lay.

"Is it night?" she replied in a voice which sounded quite strange to the little girl's ears. "John, where is my darling? I cannot see her; put her here, close beside me.—There, sweetest one; lay thy head on mother's breast."

[Pg 18]

Violet placed her head on her mother's shoulder, and stretching out her little arm, threw it lovingly round her neck. "What ails sweet mother?" she said softly. "Art thou sick?"

"Ay, sick unto death. Mother has sent for her little girl to bid her good-bye. Mother must say adieu to her poor sick girlie; but father will love thee, oh, so well.—Is it not so, beloved? Thou hast always been better to her than many mothers."

"Yes, yes," he said huskily; "never fear, thou knowest that I love her."

"And by-and-by she will follow me to heaven. Is it not so, John? She will be glad to find me there."

"Yes, darling, yes. And now kiss thy little one, and I will carry her back to bed;" for the childish eyes were beginning to dilate with a strange terror, and Violet was shrinking nervously back against the wall.

"Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye," cried the poor mother, clinging to the little white figure as John lifted her from the bed; "when Violet has wings she will fly to her dear mother in heaven, will she not?"

"Yes," replied Violet, her face brightening up with a broad, sweet smile as her father lifted her in his[Pg 19] arms, and she leaned her cheek against his, "beautiful silver wings; but mother must not go to heaven to-night, for to-morrow Fritz is to bring me my cart, and mother has promised to put a cushion in it and wheel Violet round the room."

Her father carried her back to her bed and laid her down, oh, so softly and tenderly, and kissed her with a long kiss, longer than any he had ever given her before, and then he went back into the room and closed the door. Violet did not hear anything more. She looked for some time at the beautiful purple sky outside, filled with thousands of shining stars. She saw the roofs of the houses with their pointed gables; and on the top of the chimney opposite she could see the grave figure of a stork standing upright in the starlight beside its nest. She felt sad at first and trembled a little, she did not know why. For why had her mother called her in the middle of the night and said good-bye to her? Where was she going? She had never gone away anywhere from her before, and to-morrow she had promised to give her that ride in Fritz's cart, and to tell her again that story about the cruel tailor who ran his needle into the elephant's trunk; and Violet smiled and forgot her troubles as she remembered how the elephant filled his great

trunk at the gutter and splashed it all over[Pg 20] the tailor as he sat cross-legged at his work in the open window; and soon, her mind growing more composed, and somewhat tangled with sleep, she thought she heard the tailor crying somewhere outside in the street. She did not like to hear him sobbing; and every time she looked up, the elephant was still shooting up water into the air; but the bright drops which she saw were the stars still twinkling on the dark back-ground of the sky, and the sobbing came from the next room, where her father was kneeling brokenhearted by the bedside on which her little mother lay dead.

[Pg 21]

CHAPTER III. A SAD DISCOVERY.

It was not for many days that Violet understood that her mother was really dead; perhaps, indeed, she did not quite understand it for many months to come. It seemed so strange to her that in the morning when she opened her eyes her father was boiling the kettle on the stove, and arranging the little wooden tray, which was always laid on her bed, with her morning meal, hot and tempting, placed upon it. It was he, too, who, lifting her gently up, placed the pillows behind her poor tired shoulders, and propped up her back so that she could sit forward and eat her egg and the sweet rolls which the baker sent across the street every day, fresh and smoking, for her breakfast.

"Where is mother?" she asked each morning with a little sorrowful smile; for her father was so good and kind, and he sat so patiently beside her bed, and buttered the bread with such care that she did not[Pg 22] want to cry or sob, though there was such a lump in her throat that she could not swallow what he gave her. "Where is mother, dear father? She did not come to see me all yesterday."

"She was not able to come," he said in a low voice.

"But where is she? Is she in the next room?"

John bowed his head over the tray, but made no answer. "Here, eat thy egg, little one; it will be cold."

"Mother always lifts the top off for me," said she with a sob.

"Ah, so she does. I am afraid father is a poor old stupid, is he not?"

She looked up hurriedly, her father's voice sounded so strangely and his fingers trembled as he tried clumsily to lift the white top off the egg. Then she saw that tears were streaming down her father's face and trickling down his beard; and thinking she had pained him by her words, she threw her arms around his neck and cried out sorrowfully,—

"Thou best father, thou art not a bit stupid. I love thee, oh so much. The breakfast is too nice; only mother always eats a piece of my cake and drinks some of the milk, and thou must do so too."

"Yes, yes, of course." John drew his hand hastily[Pg 23] across his face, and broke off a piece of the cake. He drank a mouthful of the milk, and then quickly rising, he laid the piece of cake on the table by the stove, and went into the other room.

It was the next day that Violet was told the truth, though the truth was to remain to her for many a long day a strange and cruel mystery. When she opened her eyes at the usual hour the following morning her father was not there, and only old Kate the servant, who waited on all the various lodgers in John's house, was in the room, standing by the stove, and pouring some water into a saucepan.

"Where is father?" asked Violet, raising herself up painfully in the bed, and gazing around her with a frightened air.

"He has gone out," replied Kate, keeping her back turned towards the child. "Go to sleep. He said I was not to wake thee till he came home."

"But I am awake."

"Never mind; thou must go to sleep again. He said thou wert on no account to awake or to speak until he returned."

"But I cannot go to sleep again," cried Violet, beginning to whimper a little. "I can never go to sleep again in the mornings unless mother lifts me up in the bed and settles my pillows. Is mother[Pg 24] gone out too? She has not come in these three mornings to see me."

Kate did not answer the question, for at this moment she had upset some of the water out of the saucepan upon the top of the stove, and it frizzled and made a great hissing and noise.

Meanwhile Violet had raised herself upon her elbow, and was gazing steadily at the door of her mother's room.

"Kate," she said presently, in a low, coaxing voice, "couldst thou not carry me in thy arms in there? I know thou art very old, but father always says I am not heavier than a fly."

"Thy father would be very angry if I were to attempt to carry thee. He is far too careful of thee to trust thee to my old bones."

"But thou must do it, Kate." Then suddenly raising her voice till it sounded quite shrilly through the house, she cried out, "Mother, mother, may I not go into thy room? Dear mother, answer me. Violet's back aches, and she wants to lie in thy bed."

"Tush! tush!" said Kate, coming hurriedly to the bedside of the little girl, and putting her hand softly on her shoulder; "thou must not cry and clamour so, it is no use; thy mother is not in there. She cannot hear thee; thou wilt only disturb the neighbours."

[Pg 25]

"She is there, she is there. Open the door. She cannot hear me with all that noise down there in the street. Do open the door, that I may call to her."

"There is no use calling to her, poor little lamb," said Kate, sitting down on the bed beside her and wiping away her burning tears. "She cannot hear thee. They have taken her away this morning, and she will not come back any more.—The child must know the truth some time," muttered Kate uneasily to herself. "Her father should have told her before he went out."

"Why did they take her away?" asked Violet, still all unconscious of the bitter truth conveyed by the words.

"Well, because it was arranged that she was to go this morning."

"But where—where? Canst thou not answer me, Kate? Canst thou not tell me where is my little mother gone?"

"She is gone to heaven," replied Kate, turning away her head and lifting her apron to her eyes. "Poor child, why does she ask me such questions?"

"To heaven!" said Violet with a little start and then a long gasp of childish agony. "My mother, my own dear mother. She is not gone away, she is not gone to heaven without her little Violet; it is so far, so far away."

[Pg 26]

"Hush, hush, child! It is not so very far away. Thou must not cry so. If thy father were to hear thee he would be angry with me that I have told thee."

"My father is not gone to heaven too?" she cried, starting up from her pillows with a fresh burst of agony. "O Kate, Kate! father will not leave his little Violet.—Father, father, come, come to Violet."

At this moment the door opened, and her father came in. His face was deadly pale, and he walked over to the bed with a look of absolute horror in his face.

"My darling, my sweet one," he cried; "here is thy father. Why dost thou call for him so? What troubles thee? What makes thee cry? Father is here now; he cannot bear to see thee weep. What ails thee, my sweetest treasure?"

"They have taken mother away out of the next room. I screamed to her, and she would not answer. And—and Kate says she will never come back to me any more."

John looked up at the old servant with questioning eyes, full of deepest anger drowned in pain.

"I could not help it, sir. The child awoke and made such a clamour I had to tell her. What wouldst thou have had me to do?" and the old[Pg 27] woman burst into a fit of such unfeigned weeping that John uttered not a word of reproach, but turned again to soothe his little trembling darling.

"Did the good Lord Jesus call my little mother away?" asked Violet with quivering lips.

"Yes, my heart's treasure, he did," replied he hoarsely.

"And he gave her wings?"

"Yes, yes."

"And Violet is only a poor little hunchback, and has no wings; and mother said he would call me first."

John laid his head down on the pillow and sobbed.

[Pg 28]

CHAPTER IV. FATHER'S LOVE.